Is that upgrade date about to come up on that old Droid Incredible? Or maybe your contract just expired and you feel the urge jump ship and try a new carrier. Either way it is time to treat yourself to a new stylish mobile device. CES was an opportunity for the world to see a few new mobile devices worth taking an eye at. Read my reviews on what could be your next phone. I have also seen the future a bit so do read on...
This year the prize winning phone for CES is the Lumia 900 that will soon hit AT&T rumored for March. As you can see above, the 900 decided to show up it's little brother the 800. Growing from a 3.7" to a 4:3" screen and also adding a front facing camera, the 900 is dressed to impress in both black and cyan colors. Like it's little brother it will have the same polycarbonate casing so if you scratch it the color stays true. The 900 is also a uni-body design, so no expandable memory or battery changing under this hood. Please don't fear though because this is an absolutely beautiful phone. If anyone is on AT&T looking for a new phone, please go check this guy out when it hits shelves.
From one windows device to another we go take a look at the HTC Titan II. Even though the Titan just released on AT&T not but 3 months ago, HTC isn't afraid to one up themselves. Really not much has changed from the original Titan. HTC has added an LTE radio, much like the Nokia 900 will have, so expect a fast browsing experience if you are in one of the 6 cities AT&T has LTE in. Also, and here is the kicker, HTC has added a 16 Megapixel camera to challenge that point and shoot still sitting in your purses. I know it's just a number, but that high a resolution should be able to help some of the quality issues HTC has struggled with in the past. From what I have seen so far, the camera will not disappoint.
Now that I have satisfied the AT&T crowd for a bit let's move to Verizon's neck of the woods. Verizon just so happened to be dipping into many categories at CES last week, but they managed to drop our jaws a couple of times with little nuggets like these:
Above you will see an add for the Droid RAZR Maxx. As you may already know the Droid RAZR hit market back in November and is the slimmest smarphone you can find on the market. Right now it is the slickest Android phone you can find in my opinion, and Motorola is going to try to bank on that. As you can see from both pictures these phones look pretty darn familiar. If you held both the purple RAZR on the left and the RAZR Maxx above together you would notice the Maxx is thicker at just 8.9mm instead of the amazing 7mm shown to the left. This is due to an incredibly large addition the the battery capacity. Motorola decided to just about double the battery size in the Maxx to 3300 mah, and boasting a game changing 21 hours of talk time. They have not said if that will be with LTE running at the same time on big red, but you gotta admit it sounds intriguing. Just like the original Droid RAZR it also seems to not be able to remove the battery cover, so every bit of capacity improvement to the battery is a welcomed one. We can expect the RAZR Maxx to enter the market at 299.99 when it becomes available. For now though, you can pick up the RAZR in black or white, with purple soon to follow.
Are you the power user that needs a physical keyboard? Look no further because Motorola and Verizon are putting out the Droid 4 soon too. Yup, Motorola is going to be putting out their 4th edition to the Droid in just a little over two years. Wasn't it just August we were talking about the Droid 3? I shouldn't knock Motorola for this crazy pace they are pumping out phones with. The Droid 4 is just adding to the oddly angular body style of the Droid RAZR, and Verizon is pushing everyone to get on LTE. I am actually happy to see a keyboard device as nice as the Droid 4 hit market after seeing 8 LTE touch display phones that all looked pretty darn similar (yeah I know the Stratosphere has a keyboard too, but I'm talking high end here). Luckily Motorola's CEO is letting everyone breath for a bit. In an interview during CES the road map for future devices will be slowing down a bit for Motorola. Expect less devices with more innovation in each model. Like music to my ears Mr Jha.
One more huge phone to show off for Verizon and it will be a bit cheaper than the RAZR Maxx. The LG Spectrum is set to tee off on Verizon 1/19 with a price of just 199.99. The show stopper on this device is the display. Using a true HD IPS display, similar to what you see in the iPhone 4, 720p native resolution is for real, setting the bar at 326 ppi pixel density. It will need that resolution because it is going to be on a 4.5" diagonal screen ran by a 1.5 GHz dual core processor. This beast is meant to play video and on Verizon's LTE network your wish is the Specturm's command. Now I haven't seen the Spectrum up close yet, but I like smoothed design back and I cannot wait to see some Netflix oozing out on the display.
Unlike last year big red kept it quiet unlike last year. If you remember CES last year Verizon showed off 4 LTE devices, one of which did not release until August of 2011. I think that is why we saw only a couple of models shown off this year. AT&T didn't really show off much either, but it is quite obvious that AT&T is going all in on Windows Phone as the alternate choice to Apple while Verizon has decided to go Android. Although I am partial to Windows Phone as an OS, I think Verizon will keep raking in the cash thanks to exclusive deals like the Droid RAZR.
*** Samsung Galaxy Nexus news flash: The recent Android developer phone will be hitting Sprint soon and will have Google Wallet featured. This is a direct knock at the Verizon version showing Sprint is desperate for market share. Will it work? Hell no! ***
Moving on to some devices that will not make a lot of noise, but should most definitely be pointed out. Let's talk Sony. I thought this CES would be the emergance of Nokia again to the American market, but alas we are treated to another resurrection of sorts with the Sony Xperia Ion and S models. Enjoy!
Starting with the S model seen right Sony is following Nokia's design with a poly carbonate body. Oh how sweet it looks! The slightly curved body, vertical cutouts for camera and speaker, the uni-body design, oh and a shutter button. Wait, what is that clear band around the bottom? Oh, and it lights up too. People there is a USB port on the bottom of the phone and the cell antenna is in that clear plastic piece. We are witnessing some really amazing design here that should be noted. It is quite sad knowing not one carrier has picked up this phone, so you will have to buy an unlocked GSM version from Sony's website if you want your hands on it. However, for you AT&T goers look below.
Although the Ion doesn't take all the amazing attributes from the S it is definitely no slouch. AT&T users will be wowed this spring with it's 4.6 inch 720p Bravia engine display. Sony has also loaded a 12-megapixel Exmor camera ready to go in just 1.5 seconds from standby. Expect LTE radios and NFC included as well. Sorry folks, Sony still has no love for Verizon. This S model should be a great competitor to AT&T's Windows Phone arsenal toting a new Android device that is on it's way to dropping it's 4.0 OS.
I hope that is enough phones for you to think of right now. There were a few mid level phones for Metro PCS and Sprint that were shown off, but certainly not of the caliber we see above. Lenovo also announced Intel-powered Android devices as well as Motorola stated they would be going to Intel's x86 architecture for Android as well. That means Motorola is planning to expand on their laptop doc model with a little Google OS I think. imagine connecting your phone to a tablet and then docking it to a workstation to get a full PC feel. Motorola seems to be the one that will make it happen, but let's see if Microsoft and Nokia can show something off before the end of the year.
I hope you enjoyed my recap of CES on the phone side. Stay tuned for tablets, TVs, and more.
